Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of the Labor Party visited Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, on Monday. True to his party platform, he did not reassure his hosts that he would support an end to the construction freeze – but he did say that the Palestinian Authority’s boycott of locally-made Jewish products and businesses would boomerang against Arab interests.
“The activities of [PA prime minister] Salam Fayyad [in banning PA residents from working in Jewish concerns], and the PA boycott, cause grave harm to the Palestinians themselves,” said Ben-Eliezer, a former Chairman of the Labor Party.
“It will increase Arab unemployment in the territories [Judea and Samaria],” Ben-Eliezer warned, “and will motivate the activities of extremist elements. This is not what I would expect of the Palestinians to do while we are trying to get dialogue started.”
He said he still calls upon the PA "not to stop the coexistence and cooperation, and to revoke the decision to forbid Arab work in Jewish factories in Judea and Samaria.”
“We in Israel will be able to manage, if we have to,” Ben-Eliezer said. “These very days, we are completing the final details on a plan to facilitate the replacement of the Arab workers with Israelis, via grants and professional training. We are mapping out all the businesses in Judea and Samaria, preparing for the possibility that we will have to make a complete replacement of manpower.”
Ben-Eliezer visited several plants and stores in Gush Etzion, including the newly-opened Rami Levy supermarket at the Gush Etzion junction. He met Arab workers who told him, “We don’t understand the PA’s decision in this regard. We will not accept this boycott, and we will continue to work here.”
